In the context of lifetime support and depot operations, it may be necessary from time to time to upgrade or update a major piece of equipment, such as a ship or aircraft. In the case of a ship, these upgrades or updates are planned years in advance, and the necessary parts and equipment are procured in advance of the upgrade. Many of these parts and equipments have long procurement times. The steps of the methods necessary to perform the upgrades are also planned well in advance of the actual implementation of the upgrade. The equipments and materials needed for the upgrades will, in general, not become available simultaneously, but rather must accumulated over a period of time of months or even years, thus requiring key business partners to participate in real-time, dynamic exchange of lifetime support and depot operational components.
When a ship or other major item is to be upgraded, there is a planned starting date for the job, which may be related to availability of a dry-dock or other major site or equipment. It is very important to assure that the parts and equipment accumulation is finished or completed by the starting date for the project. It is also important to maintain records which make it possible to predict the projected date by which all the materials will have been accumulated. This record keeping is difficult because many of the required materials arrive as parts of a “alteration kit” of parts, one of which is associated with each aspect of the upgrade. For example, the materials and equipment for upgrade of a particular radar or electronics system of the ship is shipped as a single assemblage. If two such radar or electronic equipments are in use on the ship, two alteration kits must be available, one for each unit. Each alteration kit is associated with a bill of lading, which identifies the alteration kit and gives the kit part number. Inside the alteration kit packaging, or associated therewith, is a alteration instruction manual, which includes a list of parts which should be in the alteration kit. In order to verify that all the necessary parts are contained in each alteration kit when it is received at the site at which materials for the upgrade are accumulated, the alteration kit is opened and inventoried against the alteration instruction manual. The materials must then be repackaged in accordance with specifications in readiness for shipping from the material accumulation site to the upgrade work site. At some point in the accumulation process, lifetime support and depot operations collaborate on the status of critical logistical elements, which indicate what particular components of the necessary alteration kit or kits have been delivered, but as to undelivered materials, has only a manufacturer's promised delivery date upon which to rely. The scheduling of the upgrade is, of course, based upon the promised delivery dates. If these dates are not met, the materials cannot be shipped to the upgrade site so as to arrive in time for the scheduled starting date. If the materials do not arrive on the manufacturer's promised date, then, the upgrade cannot begin, and the upgrade site, as for example a dry-dock, has a ship sitting therein on which work cannot be started, at least as to the missing alteration kits. Such late-arriving alteration kits can be stored until a later scheduled upgrade time, possibly years in the future, but cannot be installed during this particular scheduled upgrade interval.
Spare parts must be provided for those parts of a ship, which are likely to break down during operation. Spare parts may be included in an alteration kit, or they may arrive separately. When the spare parts are part of an alteration kit, the spare parts provided therewith must be correlated with the list of on-board spare parts so that they can be checked off as received. Spare parts received separately from an alteration kit can be simply checked off the spare parts list.
Each ship upgrade requires upgrading of the technical manuals associated with the upgraded equipment so that the upgraded equipment may be properly maintained. If the technical manual is classified, it must be treated differently than spare parts. Documentation must be provided for the handling of the technical manuals, and their arrival in time for the upgrade must be considered.
Preventive maintenance schedule documentation can be handled in the same manner as technical manuals. In addition to technical manuals required for maintenance, technical manuals and instructions must be provided for each upgrade to be performed.
The difficulty of maintaining records and of making the determination is further compounded by the fact that different classes of ships may have equipments in common. For example, a radar or communication system may find use not only in a given class of naval vessels, such as destroyers, but also in some other class of ships, such as cruisers or even tankers. In some cases, similar ships of the navies of other countries may be impacted.
The determination of the status of completion of accumulation of all the alteration kits, spare parts, and manuals and other documentation associated with upgrades is a very difficult task.
Improved methods are desired for the determination of the status of accumulation of the necessary equipments for an upgrade of a major asset.